Consider this EWs small council, made of two people far too obsessed with everythingThrones.
This years burning question:Besides the Great War, what will happen in season 8?
SHIRLEY:Darren, heres where we stand.
The Wall has fallen, and Tormund and Bericpossiblywith it.
So the Great War is coming!
But… that cant be all there is to the final six episodes, can it?
That said, Darren, what do you think will be her next move?
Once she has her sellswords and her elephants (can Euron even transport them?
), what will she do?
March on Winterfell for, I dont know, fun and extra resources?
And could Euron bring back more than what he set out to find?
And I would be totally happy if the season 8 premiere never leaves Kings Landing.
All Hail Queen Cersei, the only strategist left in Westeros!
Bring on the Golden Company!
March, elephants, march!
I guess you could criticize Cersei for a lack of foresight.
The Army of the Dead will kill everyone, and therefore everyone must fight back.
Weve heard this constantly: Its a simple moral binary.
(Queen Lannister = ExxonMobil!)
Martin constructed his original story with the thrilling amorality of actual history.
And in that tradition, Cersei skipped the metaphors and did the math.
Shes got two enemies, essentially unstoppable.
One enemy is way up north and has an army of zombies.
Another enemy is going up north and has one less dragon than she used to.
Whoever wins, Cersei loses in the long-term.
Holy crap, Shirley, what if Cersei is becoming Young Griff???
If thats the case, her next move will be to shore up her dominance of the South.
Does it even snow in Dorne?
What do you think her next move is, Shirley?
And how do you interpret the burgeoning, befuddling theory that she is somehow in cahoots with Tyrion?
My hot take on That Tyrion Shot Everyones Talking About is that it means nothing.
But what do I know?
I thought Littlefinger had a plan!
Is he a Blackfyre posing as a Targaryen?
What will Dany think?
In other words, I think what we lack is a proper wild card to raise the stakes further.
The dead is the enemy, sure, but lets not forget the living.
If Daenerys falls, where would Tyrion go?
Would he and Varys jump ship?
(The camera lingered on him and that wight arm a little too long, in my opinion.)
Shell be the undead wild card.
Then again, I thought shed die this season, so obviously I know as little as you do.
But what do you think, Darren?
And what of Winterfell?
Bran, I imagine, will stay behind.
Three Eyed Ravens have no need for warmer climates.
I love everything youre saying about Tyrion and Cersei.
(His methods are unsound, but didnt Da Vinci supposedly hire graverobbers?)
I buythatsibling drama even less than I bought this seasons Winterfell sibling drama.
I dont think theyll depart their ancestral home.
Actually, Ive always imagined that some final momentous battle with the Night King will happenatWinterfell.
Such an event would unite several disparate story strands.
The suggestion that the Night King is a Stark.
The book-ending fact thatThronesbegan at Winterfell.
Im thrill-drunk just imagining the scene where Arya and Jon go all Legolas-and-Gimli on the Winterfell battlements.
And Im almost tearful, imagining a fled-north Jaime guarding Bran in the tower where their problems began.
How do you think the story proceeds up North next season, Shirley?
What do you think the reaction to Jons Targaryen news will be?
Will Dany and Jon even care?
And, thinking broader: What do youwantto see in season 8?
What will feel appropriate in a six-episode season?
Do you want six one-hour movies, Marshall/Sapochnik style?
Are we trending toward a climax, or a purposeful anticlimax?
I want six movies.
I want at least one huge battle episode.
I want an episode told through flashbacks.
I want an end to deus ex machinas.
I want a Brienne-centric hour.
I want to know if Ser Pounce is doing alright.
Okay, so Im not sure what I want, really.
Instead, I think were headed toward something surrounding faith.
After all, weve discussed the significance of Azor Ahai before, but to what end?
Will we see Jon and/or Daenerys wield a sword/arm/thingy of fire?
Will we see Jon and/or Daenerys murder the other to light it, as the story goes?
Yeah, this isnt making a lot of sense.
(Book Stuff again, yikes.)
Could the Great War end not in conflict but with another pact?
Could a higher power get involved?
Earlier this season, I thought we would transcend politics, and here we are, with Cersei intact!
So tell me, Darren, am I going a little nuts and thinkingtoobroadly now?
I realize I didnt even think about whatll happen specifically with the Starks.
All I know is weve gotta reuniteallof em before its too late.
And what areyourkookiest theories for these remaining episodes?
DARREN:I am here for your wonky philoso-spiritual final act!
And then Ygritte flies down and says she knows where Earth is!
I kid, but I dont kid.
Like the books, the show started off in a realm of near-realistic Medieval Fantasy.
Id love if the last sequence of episodes pushes further into the realm of Weird Fantasy.
I truly dont know.
Benioff & Weiss have always seemed hesitant, maybe understandably, to explore the supernatural stuff too deeply.
Two people separately told Bran this season that they have no idea what the Three-Eyed Raven is.
My boldest and possibly dumbest theory: After the Great War comes the cold war.
The years flash by.
We pick up with Cersei and little Tywin Lannister II in the Red Keep, some years later.
Tywin 2 runs outside to pull the wings off of butterflies.
Out of the shadows steps Arya, planning to cross out that one final name from her list.
Theyre alone in her room together, the Queen and her hopeful assassin.
If you kill me, Cersei says, the country will descend into chaos.
The North and South will go to war, she tells Arya.
And worse: Bannerman will turn on each other, treaties only recently signed will be forgotten.
Whats more important, Cersei asks Arya, your vengeance or your country?
A country at peace… but maybe not for long.
